Why can't they be normal?
by bashfyl
Summary: Claudia Elle Stilinski-Hale is done! She is so far from done it isn't even funny. She slams the car door and walks into her friend Kady's house without even so much as a goodbye for her dad. "Can't believe them, so fucking done, why can't they be fucking normal and have mistresses or get a divorce?" she mutters angrily on her way to Kady's room.


Claudia Elle Stilinski-Hale is done! She is so far from done it isn't even funny. She slams the car door and walks into her friend Kady's house without even so much as a goodbye for her dad.

"Can't believe them, so fucking done, why can't they be fucking normal and have mistresses or get a divorce?" she mutters angrily on her way to Kady's room.

She and Kady have been friends since the first day of kindergarten, and it's great really, but even after eleven years of friendship Kady doesn't understand why Claude is so upset with her parents. Well tonight's the night because Claude is getting hammered and telling all. She needs to vent; she has listened to everyone else complain about their parents for years and every time she tries, she is shutdown because everyone thinks her dads are adorable. Well, it's not freaking adorable to her, and they don't have to live with this shit!

"Don't give me that look, Kady Marie Lachlan! Just hand over the bottle!"

"Come on, Claude. It can't be that bad." Kady gets up and closes her bedroom door, just in case, and one of the other girls hands Claudia a bottle of vodka.

Claudia puts the bottle to her lips and chugs down as much as she can stand. As the warmth starts to spread through her body, she begins speaking quietly. "You don't get it. I know everything looks perfect from the outside, but it's not. You know, they wanted me to cancel tonight? You know why? Because we have to go to Sacramento tomorrow. All those 'family trips' to Sacramento, yeah those are really trips to buy new furniture. To replace what gets broken."

"Sometime between when I went to bed last night and when I got up for school this morning, the kitchen table got broken.. Do you know why we have to go to Sacramento to buy furniture? Because my dads are banned from every furniture store in Beacon County! Which I guess is a good thing for Grampa because he was really getting tired of the gossip about how often my dads have to replace the furniture!"

The room is silent while Claudia pauses to chug down more vodka. Lily finally works up the courage to ask, "But they don't hit you or the other kids, right?"

Claudia laugh-snorts. "Hit us? I wish someone was getting hit! No, it's sex! All the fucking sex, every fucking where! They need a new bed at least once a month. We have a new dining room table at least once a year! The bathroom remodel last summer? That was because they broke the fucking bathroom! Not just a little thing like the toilet or the shower head, no the whole fucking bathroom, demolished!"

"On their anniversary, we have to go stay with Abuela and Grampa for a week! Grampa takes the week off work so he doesn't have to deal with the noise complaints or gossip about where they got caught having sex this year! Did you know the sixth wedding anniversary gift is candy? Well my Tata did and he laid himself out on the dining room table all covered in Dad's favorites. He forgot to tell anyone, so boy did my Aunt Allison and Aunt Erica get a surprise when they went to set up for" their anniversary party!"

Claudia flops over into Kady's lap, having forgotten that when you talk with your hands you can't use them to keep yourself upright.

"Last Thanksgiving no one could come on the actual day because of different things, so we were going to have the family Thanksgiving dinner that Saturday. Well my dads forgot! This was when they were building Bears' treehouse. You remember right, Kady? So everyone is arriving at 5:00 and me and the kids were with Grampa and Abuela, and when we were walking up to the house we heard a crash and Tata yelled and then Dad was just laughing."

"Everyone ran around the house into the yard, all my aunts and uncles and cousins, and my dads were both stark naked! Tata was hanging upside down from a rope, he had gotten tangled up when he fell out of the treehouse, and there's Dad, just naked, everywhere! He just hops down from the tree and starts getting Tata down, he doesn't even bother to put on pants."

She emphasizes the word 'pants' by swinging her right hand in a sweeping arch, coming a hair's breadth from punching Lily.

"And do you think we all had dinner then? Oh no! We all went in the house to get dinner, but my dad - my freaking dad - carried Tata upstairs to their bedroom, and we could hear them, ok? We had to play loud Christmas music to try and drown out the noise! It was two hours before we saw either of them again! And neither one had the decency to even be a little embarrassed. Well, I am embarrassed!"

"There are some things a girl doesn't need to know about her dads ever, but especially not because she has walked in on them! I shouldn't have to knock before I go into my own house after school!"

Kady very calmly pulls her distraught friend into a tight hug, she rocks her a little and hums. The tension starts to bleed out of Claudia's body.

"Just you wait, one day we are going to have study group or a class project and then you'll see! You will see!"

A softly murmured, "We can dream," is the last thing she hears before succumbing to the comfort and warmth of her best friend's arms.

It takes until almost the end of senior year before Claudia's prophecy comes true. A broken water main at the high school sends the girls to Hale House a couple hours early for study group.

When the girls burst through the Hale's front door they are greeted by the sight of two very naked Hale dads. Clothes are strewn about the entryway and while Derek freezes, Stiles startles and almost falls off Derek.

Derek begins muttering, "I told you we didn't have enough time, and we needed to get upstairs."

Stiles buries his blushing face in his husband's neck, while Derek readjusts his grip on Stiles' ass and walks them both up the stairs to their bedroom, Stiles whimpering with every step, the door slam echoing through the house.

The girls land in a snickering pile, the laughter overflows almost to the point of hysteria.

"Omg he wasn't even using a wall for a brace, just standing in the middle of the room!"

"JFC that thing is huge, how does it even fit?"

"Well. from what Claude says, lots and lots of practice!"

Laying there snickering in a pile of her friends, Claudia finally accepts that her parents aren't normal, and she wouldn't want them to be. Where's the fun in normal anyway?


End file.
